the largest buyers on the other side to my knowledge are airlines doing exactly what the producers are doing from the other side. Smoothing out costs. Now one airline may have more pre purchased product than other as a percentage of usage but we’re talking about a really small difference when factored out over millions of miles. The U.S. government likely also pre purchases oil in the same way. I can’t think they would leave something like fuel for military vehicles to the vagaries of market movement. Refineries i believe also pre purchase.
With gold its a different story. Theres much more speculative buying since its buying to fill a demand thats not necessary but rather more along the lines of a luxury.
Say you’re Chesapeake Energy and you’re hedging your 4BCF of daily production. You’re doing deals with the major banks. And your not doing all of your deals with the same bank, in case it goes belly up. The banks are doing the opposite deals with people you mentioned. But the banks also take positions sometimes because they want to and sometimes because they have to in order to make the deal. You just hope they don’t over extend. Considering the (to big to fail / government is going to bail them out) world we live in..... I’d guess they’re all over extended in a variety of sectors.